UBC Engineering Physics Project Lab

Welcome Shads!

0.  Examples:

Download the talk here (pdf, shadvalley2012-prototypingandelectronics, 4Mb)

 

Student Undergrad Projects and Sponsors

• Kirk Madison and his research in Cold Atoms
• Light Integra
• Remote Control Kite in action.
• Titanoboa vs. Mondo Spider (also see the full-length Titanoboa)

Prototyping tools

• ENPH 253 – intro to prototyping course for 2nd year Engineering Physics students.
• Videos of the Engineering Physics prototyping equipment in action – waterjet cutter, laser cutter, and 3D printer.
• Want to manufacture your drawing?   You can draw up items in any CAD drawing software (like Google Sketchup or SolidWorks or Autocad ) and submit to a 3D company like Shapeways or Ponoko – get your part in less than a week.
• You can prototype in software as well – graphical tools like processing.org make visual simulations easy to run (samples at the Phys350 – classical mechanics website)
• We often prototype electronics using the Arduino micrcontroller boards.  Very popular and easy to use – and can be built up into surprisingly powerful tools.

 

 

---

 

1.  Download and Install the Arduino Software

1. Get the software for you computer either from the USB discs/drives circulating around the room, or download from the website (it’s an ~80Mb file).
2. Unzip the files – this could take a while on slower computers! (my netbook took ~5min).
3. Follow the “Arduino – Getting Started” setup for your computer.  The  Mac install is relatively straightforward, but for Windows you may have to install the driver manually as described online.

2.  Arduino Activities

1. Seeing a knob (potentiometer), getting knob to input into board (Basics -> ArduinoReadSerial)
2. QRD light input with lightbulb (Basics -> ArduinoReadSerial)  3.3kohm + light bulb
3. light + sound output (Analog -> AnalogInput)    LED  + piezo buzzer + DC motor?
4. Servo Knob

 

3.  Ideas and Components

• iFixIt Teardowns – A particularly instructive website for learing about what key elements are in modern electronics (and I mean very modern – they had tear-downs of the recent iPhone 3GS and Nintendo DS XL on the day of release). The tear-down of the Pleo dinosaur is particularly fun.
• Instructables has a nice collection of project descriptions.
• Download the PDF “Super-Quick Intro to Electronics“McMaster-Carr – they sell just about every mechancial device and component you can think of
• Sparkfun – electronics projets and parts for prototyping.  Their forums are incredibly helpful.
• Newark and Digikey – two electronics vendors that sell everything.
• Download the PDF “Super-Quick Intro to Electronics” to learn about electronics components.